Posts tagged: #Royal Armouries

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of the great detective Sherlock Holmes. However, Conan Doyle also used his fame to campaign on behalf of British soldiers during the First World War. Conan Doyle’s conversations with the War Office, in which he suggests equipping the troops with better shields, helmets and body armour, form the subject of this blog series. In this final post of the series – written by Philip Abbot, Archives and Records Manager at Royal Armouries –Read more

Part Three: Private Companies Written by Philip Abbot Archives and Records Manager for the Royal Armouries in Leeds. At least eighteen designs for armour using steel plate, mail and even textiles were manufactured commercially in Britain during the First Word War, and no less than forty patents for helmets and armour were taken out in Britain between 1914 and 1918. It comes as no surprise therefore to learn that Conan Doyle also received letters from a number of private companiesRead more

In May 2016, the First World War Archives project welcomed two students from Leeds University’s MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies Course. During their placement, Hanlun Ren and Yan Liu undertook a research project to digitise and research a small archive of material held by the Royal Armouries relating to Shell Filling Factory No.6 at Chilwell. They have been kind enough to write a bilingual blog for us based on an area of their research that particularly interested them –Read more

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s campaign for better body armour on the Western Front, part two. (See previous post here.) Written by Philip Abbott, Archives and Records Manager at the Royal Armouries. David Lloyd George noted in his wartime memoirs that when he became Minister of Munitions that he was deluged with letters from “cranks and lunatics” who had some new invention to propose. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own letters to The Times and The Observer resulted in a number of responsesRead more

Part One, Conan Doyle’s letters to The Times Written by Philip Abbott, Archives and Records Manager at the Royal Armouries. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of the great detective Sherlock Holmes, although he received his knighthood not for his contribution to English literature, but for defending Britain’s conduct of the Boer War (1899-1902). When the First World War broke out he was one of a number of famous authors who were secretly recruited by the War PropagandaRead more

Written by Phil Magrath, Curator at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth. The Royal Armouries collection of artillery was recently enhanced with the addition of a Field Howitzer of 155mm calibre (FH-70). This system was originally a collaborative project between the UK, USA and Germany, all desirous to change older systems, which, in the case of the UK, was the 5.5-inch Medium Gun (also in the collection). The FH-70 is able to fire NATO standard ammunition including those with extended range base bleedRead more